What's in a Name?
by Airess Byrd
Summary: Major Episode III spoilers. Shion asks chaos about his name.


Standard disclaimer: Seriously people, do you THINK that I would be typing up stories on my computer if I owned Xenosaga?

Oh, that's a "no" for the village idiot that passed Go without drawing a card first ;)

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AN: Hello :) Was feeling a little antisocial at work the other day; I was really tired and just wanted to go back to sleep. Luckily, I didn't have to work around anyone all day ;

So, I was thinking about possible fanfics, and this one sprang to mind. Shion asks chaos about his name. Heh, heh, heh!

Ya know, I have written two other fanfics for Xenosaga and have gotten two lovely reviews for each of them.

First off, I'd like to thank LadyJenna33 for the lovely review she sent me for Get Ready to Rumble! Thank you! (Oh, do yourself a favor and go read and review her stories :) )

The other was from someone called Anon. (an anonymous review, I guess) who left me a review for All I Want, my Christmas fic. Thanks Anon.!

This fic was also the result of Anon.'s comment about how there are a lot of fics that end with chaos not really happy. I thought this would make one less sad ficcy for chaos. Well, sorta. At least he gets a good laugh out of it, right?

This story takes place any time before midway through disk one of episode three, but sometime after two, because Jin's mentioned in it. (okay, so I am a Jin fangirl, there ya happy?! ;;; )

So I am only going to say this once… This is another fic that has spoilers abound. And do I ever mean spoilers. They rampage the countryside. So, SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!

Oh, and the little comment about Gulliver's Travels? I had to read that stupid book for high school Great Books, and then once again for a college class. I HATED IT!!! Right, now onto the fanfic!

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What's in a Name?

It was really late, around 2:30 a.m. Most people (read: sane) were in bed, fast asleep. For a certain silver-haired youth, however, was sitting in one of the unoccupied booths in the Elsa's bar/dining area.

chaos sighed as he absentmindedly scrolled down on the screen of his connection gear. He thought it had something do to with Elsa's logical drive. He really wasn't paying attention when Hammer went over the specs. It's not that he didn't care, he just… well, okay. So, maybe he didn't really care. He just smiled and nodded to keep Hammer from getting mad at him.

chaos hummed to himself and turned the gear off and placed it down beside a steamy hot cup of coffee. He figured if he wasn't going to be able to sleep, then he might as well make the most of it. Luckily, the diner was abandoned at this time of night. chaos wasn't really fit for human interaction, for some reason.

He had tried going to sleep, but it seemed like some smartass decided to play some sort of cosmic joke on him that night. He idly wondered if he pissed off someone. He shook his head and snickered at the thought.

Well, when he entered the men's quarters, he knew that there wouldn't be any peace. Why? Because… well, just because. For starters, Little Master and Jin Uzuki were wide awake, at midnight no less, and debating some document. Jr. had actually jumped up on one of the tables to be face to face with Jin. He had waved a book in the older man's face, while Jin just stood there, calmly, with his arms crossed and nodded every once in a while.

Living with Shion all those years must have given him the patience of a saint… or something.

Allen had retreated to his bunk and was sulking over the fact that Tony and Hammer wouldn't stop teasing him about his crush on Shion. He felt sorry for Allen. He was a really nice guy and all, but he really needed to learn to assert himself more.

He didn't even WANT to know where Scott was at this time. Probably on one of the lower floors, with the Professor. He did mention something about building a new and improved Erde Kaiser. Hopefully, they would come up with one that someone else other than Shion would be able to summon. Seriously, it wasn't like she was going to be traveling with them forever. Must to Tony's disappointment.

So, this left chaos with few options. He didn't really want to bug Ziggy, and its not like he could actually go into the women's quarters. He was sure that MOMO and Shion wouldn't mind if he slept there, he just didn't want Tony and Hammer (and god forbid, Little Master) to tease him about it.

The Captain was on the bridge, and he didn't want to get beaten up by a drunken Matthews. He thought of going down to the hanger and paying a visit to KOS-MOS, but… ah well.

He really hoped she would wake up soon. He really missed…

The diner's door opened and in walked Shion. She bit back a yawn as she scratched the back of her mussed brown hair. She mumbled to herself for a few minutes before she finally noticed chaos.

chaos grinned slightly as he took a sip of his coffee. God bless the individual who invented coffee.

"c-chaos?" Shion stuttered as she tried to subconsciously straighten out her hair.

"Good evening, Shion," chaos smiled. "What are you doing up this late?"

"Uh, couldn't sleep?" Shion replied sheepishly.

"Works for me," chaos chuckled.

Shion grinned as she walked over to the bar and poured herself a cup of coffee. She then walked over and sat down opposite of chaos.

"What are you doing up so late?" Shion asked after she took a few sips of coffee.

"Ah, couldn't sleep," chaos replied. "Too much on my mind."

"Oh?"

"Hn."

"Um… okay?" Shion mused. She mulled something over in her head for a few minutes, not really sure how to start this certain conversation. A lightbulb finally went off in her mind and she grinned slightly.

"Say, chaos?" chaos looked up from his mug and gave Shion a sideways glance.

Shion pulled out her connection gear and booted it up. She typed a few things and grinned. "I was bored earlier, so I decided to surf the U.M.N. I found an interesting website that gave the meanings of names."

chaos nodded and Shion continued. "I looked up some of our names. Would you believe that MOMO's name means 'peach?' I thought it was really cute. She did too. I looked up my name and apparently the name 'shion' is a type of daisy. Just for kicks, I looked up Jin's name. Did you know that 'Jin' means 'gold?' Boy was I surprised."

"That's interesting, Shion," chaos grinned slightly. He was curious as to where this was going.

"Heh, I looked up your name, and came up with some interesting results. 'Disorder,' 'confusion,' and 'discord' were among the many meanings I found," Shion mused as she gave chaos a sideways glance. "Though, when you think about it, that really has nothing to do with your personality. You don't seem confused or chaotic, you know?"

So, Shion was actually curious about his name? Well, this should be fun. Heh.

"Names define things," chaos started. "I feel like my name defined me perfectly."

"Uh?" Shion looked confused. "I don't think I follow…"

chaos smiled slightly. "I'm not surprised. Well, chaos isn't my real name."

"It's not?"

"No, it is a name that which I chose to define myself."

"Uh, huh?" Shion still looked confused.

"You see, 'chaos' is more like a word. A description of which my life and everyone around me seems to descend into."

"Um, what are you saying?" Shion was trying really hard not to whack him on the head and tell him to get on with it.

He didn't know if it was because it was almost 3 a.m. or if he just needed to TELL someone, but he figured he would have a little fun.

"Shion, the truth is…" chaos sighed. "I'm not even human."

The look on Shion's face was priceless.

"Shion, I am the human incarnation of Anima, a power derived from the collective unconscious of humanity and present since the beginning of the universe in this dimension. I existed during the era of Lost Jerusalem as a man named Yeshua. I taught humanity long ago. I was partnered with a woman who was the human incarnation of Animus, which is the antithesis to the convergence and unity theme behind the power of the Animus."

Shion merely stared at chaos, mouth agape.

"Long ago at the beginning of the universe, certain wills of humanity resonated purely with Anima. These wills began a chain reaction throughout the collective consciousness, resulting in the dispersal of consciousnesses, a phenomenon that led the universe towards destruction. Eventually, the increasing dispersal of the collective consciousness would lead the universe to collapse."

"Bwah?" Shion stuttered.

"To counter this, Anima also possessed a failsafe function. The dispersal phenomenon of consciousnesses that resonate with Anima would have eventually triggered my failsafe, causing the destruction of the rejecting wills and reset of the universe by the power of Anima. This process involves me regathering the dispersed collective consciousness inside myself and destroying the wills that reject the collective. This would also destroy me.

"To save my life, and to prevent the destruction, the woman used her power of Animus to seal away the power of Anima as the Anima power and the Will of Anima, which is the failsafe. Then the Anima power was divided into the twelve Anima Vessels. While separated from my Anima power, my failsafe ability could not ignite.

"However, as long as Anima existed, the consciousnesses of the universe would continue to disperse until the universe was slowly destroyed by collapse."

Shion just numbly shook her head.

"But the problem was, my partner, my love, died from what she did. Her will was fractured and scattered across the U.M.N. until your dead boyfriend placed her will into the android KOS-MOS."

"Uh," Shion looked like her head might implode.

"So, because of my existence, the universe is on the brink of destruction, and my girlfriend is now an emotionless machine. Thus, the name 'chaos' seemed right."

"Y-okay…" Shion started slowly as she began to stand up.

chaos placed his hand over his mouth to hide a smirk. He then looked down at his mug and adopted a look of surprise. "Well, what do you know! I think there might be alcohol in this coffee. Oops! I'm going to have to talk to the Captain about this."

Shion nodded numbly in agreement. "Right, well, sure. Um, I'm feeling really sleepy right now. So… g'night!" Shion yelled over her shoulder as she ran out of the bar. She nearly collided with Jin on her way out.

The older man gave his sister a confused glance before looking over and spotting a grinning chaos.

Jin crossed his arms and gave the youth a questioning look.

chaos tried to desperately hide the grin on his face. He snorted and started to laugh uncontrollably. He grabbed his stomach as he doubled over laughing.

Jin glanced at the mug and then walked over to the bar. He picked up the coffee mug and sniffed it. He looked back over at chaos, who had straightened up and tried to at least regain some of his dignity.

"Is there alcohol in this or something? You are acting really strange tonight," Jin hummed. "Just what did you say to Shion? I don't think I've ever seen her move that fast. And that is including the time I asked her if she wanted to read "Gulliver's Travels"."

chaos snickered and looked over at Jin. "Oh, nothing really. She just asked me about my name, that's all."

"Okay…?" Jin just merely shook his head as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

The End

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